


as bright as the stars

by polkadot



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Gen, Ten in Ten Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last time they came, he went straight out in the boat after they left, staring at the water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as bright as the stars

He’s not a quiet man, not usually, but sometimes he likes to sit and watch the stars come out.

It’s hushed, the only sound the waves crashing gently against the shore, and when he closes his eyes he can almost forget that any world exists beyond the here and now, beyond the soft scratchiness of the sand beneath his toes and the tang of the salt air.

He doesn’t sit like this often. The stillness feels unnatural at first, his muscles thrumming for action, his blood longing for movement, his brain keeping him on high alert and ready to leap to attention. But gradually, slowly, he relaxes back into his chair; he opens his eyes and watches the stars in their constellations, little pinpricks of light against a wide dark sky.

Somewhere in the world, the sun is out. Somewhere small children are taking their first steps onto a tennis court, carrying racquets uncertainly in their tiny hands. Somewhere a local hothead is arguing a line call, throwing his arms up in utter disgust. Somewhere a youth is looking up at these same stars, dreaming of falling to his knees as a champion.

He finds his left hand is unconsciously flexing, finding a grip in the dark.

Tomorrow they will come again. Tomorrow they will look at him, and they will say many things, and he will listen carefully, and it will all come down to _maybe_ in the end. Maybe, if…Maybe, but…

He hates maybe. 

Last time they came, he went straight out in the boat after they left, staring at the water. 

When he returned to shore, his mother was waiting for him, and she said, “Maybe it’s time.”

And some days – bad days, when the pain seems like it has eaten into his bones, when his body will not do what he asks, when they will not look straight into his eyes for fear of what he will see in theirs – he thinks for a split second that maybe it is. Maybe it’s time to put down his racquet, to step quietly off the court, to do whatever it is that he will have to do when his playing days are over.

In the morning’s light, he will be the man he wishes to be, brave and determined and calm. In the dark, his left hand clenches into a fist. 

_Not yet._

Perhaps tomorrow they will look at him and smile. Perhaps tomorrow the pain will be a ghost memory, as easily shaken off as the remnants of a bad dream lingering behind waking eyelids.

But even if it isn’t, the time for the laying down of arms has not yet come. He will not let it come.

He gets up, standing there for a long moment in the deepening quiet. The stars are bright overhead, and the shush-shush of the waves seems softer. It is peaceful, in a way he rarely is; he smiles wryly into the darkness, his hand leaning for balance on the back of his chair.

A year from now, where will he be? Will he be absent, his body in tatters and his dreams in ruins? Will he be grim, soldiering on through early defeats and continued pain, determined to wrest every last moment of grudging glory? Or will he be triumphant, his arms around a trophy, his smile as bright as the stars?

He can hardly hope for the last, much as it thrills his heart. And yet…

He turns away from the shore, picking his way through the sand and towards the house. His life is full of maybes, and there are no guarantees in sight. 

But he does know some things for certain.

He is a warrior, the destroyer of dreams. He is a fighter, the one who will not bow his head. He is a _jugador_ , and his star has not yet gone from the heavens.

He sets his hand on the latch without a backwards glance, and steps inside.


End file.
